Do you want to disable Google AMP in WordPress? Many bloggers and websites who jumped on the Google AMP bandwagon are now disabling it for different reasons. The challenge is that disabling Google AMP is not as simple as one would hope for. In this article, we will show you how to properly disable Google AMP in WordPress.
Why and Who Should Disable Google AMP in WordPress
Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP is an open source initiative with aim to make the web faster for mobile users and improve user experience.
It does so by serving pages with bare minimal HTML and JavaScript. This allows the content to be hosted on Google AMP Cache. Google can then serve this cached version to users instantly when they click on your link in the search results.
We shared our concerns and issues raised by other bloggers regarding AMP in our guide on how to set up Google AMP in WordPress.
Since then many website owners, influential bloggers, and online publications have stopped using AMP. Many of them shared the reasons behind their decision.
For example, Alex Kras wrote in great length about why he decided to disable AMP on his website.
He also shared what happened one month after he disabled Google AMP.
Traffic rate appears to stay roughly the same and all metrics appear to improve. To be fair, I did publish four new articles since I disabled AMP, so my numbers could have had a nice bump from the new content.
Here are some of the concerns shared by many influencers, bloggers, and developers.
Drastic Drop in Conversion Rates
AMP uses a restrictive set of HTML/JS. Site owners cannot do much about encouraging users to subscribe, fill out contact forms, or buy stuff.
Lower Pageviews by Mobile Users
AMP does not show your website’s navigation menus, sidebars, or other content discovery features. This causes significant drop in pageviews by mobile users.
In fact some user experience experts suggest that the close button on top actually encourages users to return back to Google search after reading your article instead of browsing your website.
Lower User Engagement
Many websites thrive on user interactions, like click to tweet widgets, user ratings, comments, and so on. Google AMP makes it quite difficult for website owners to keep users engaged and interact with their content.
Should You Disable Google AMP?
The answer to this question actually depends on your website. If mobile users make the majority of your audience, then you may still want to use AMP.
On the other hand, if you have tried Google AMP, and it has negatively affected your conversion rates, then you should probably disable Google AMP on your website.
Contrary to popular belief, Google does not penalize websites for not using AMP. You can still improve your website’s speed and performance on mobile to compete for mobile search audience.
Step 1. Disabling Google AMP in WordPress
There are a couple of WordPress plugins that allow you to add AMP support to your website. The basic settings remain the same regardless of what plugin you are using.
First thing you need to do is to deactivate the AMP plugin. Simply visit the plugins page and click on the deactivate link below AMP plugin.
Deactivating the plugin will disable the AMP support on your website.
Step 2. Setting up Redirects
Disabling the AMP plugin will remove the AMP version of your articles from the website, but that alone is not enough specially if you have AMP turned on for more than a week.
There is a very good chance that Google already have those pages cached in their index, and it will keep showing those pages in search results.
To fix this problem, you need to redirect users coming to AMP pages to the regular non-AMP pages.
We will show you two different methods to set up redirects for Google AMP. You can choose the one that’s most convenient for you.
Method 1: Using a Redirect Plugin
First you will need to install and activate the Redirection plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to Tools » Redirection page to set up redirects.
First, add the following code in the source URL field:
/(.*)\/amp
In the target URL field, you need to add your website’s URL in the following format:
http://example.com/$1
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.
Now check the Regex checkbox and select Redirections under the Group drop down menu.
Finally click on the ‘Add Redirect’ button to save your changes.
You can now visit an AMP page on your website to see if the redirect is working properly.
Method 2: Manually Set Redirects in .htaccess
If you don’t want to use a plugin to setup redirects, then you can setup redirects using the .htaccess file on your WordPress hosting account.
First you will need to connect to your website using a FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. Once connected, you need to locate the .htaccess file in your website’s root folder and edit it.
Simply add the following code at the bottom of your .htaccess file:
// Redirect AMP to non-AMP
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/amp(.*)$
RewriteRule ^ %1/ [R=301,L]
Don’t forget to save your changes and upload the file back to your server.
You can now visit the AMP version of any post on your website to make sure that redirect is working as intended.
We hope this article helped you properly disable Google AMP in WordPress. You may also want to see our step by step ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners.
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Hey WPbeginner, Great article and helped me so much with my website .
Thanks
Glad our guide was helpful
I did it and it works thanks.. I was in a panic. Just one thing – a little sad looking emoji guy pops up and says ‘404 that’s an error’ just before the user is directed to the correct page. It pops up for a minute then goes away. How can I get rid of him?
You may either need to clear your browser cache or check with your hosting provider to ensure there isn’t something causing issues with your redirects.
It works, Thanks so much ☺
Glad our guide was helpful
Thank you so much for this post. As always WP beginner rocks!
Glad you found our content helpful
I have removed AMP from my website but when disabled my AMP i will recieved new issue in Google Search Console as a “Referenced AMP url is not an AMP”.
Please tell me sir how can it solved.
You would want to set up redirection following step 2 for fixing that issue.
That’s great info and help guys. Thanks a lot. Here’s my question:
What is the right direction code or way for redirect my old website’s amp pages to my new domain’s non-amp pages?
You would want to follow step 2 in the article and have the source URL be the old domain before the / in our recommendation.
Can I delete the Redirect plugin when all the amp pages are deindexed from Google?
We would recommend keeping the plugin active while using the redirect if you use the plugin method.
Today I desabled AMP plugin. When I checked my website with AMP URL it showing error.
That issue is solved with the redirects which we show in this article
Hit a little snag. I have added the code you suggest to my .htaccess file. I now get an internal error 500 from the server if I am trying to access an amp post. Normal pages display correctly.
For the 500 error, we would recommend first going through our guide below for possible solutions:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-internal-server-error-in-wordpress/
Thanks for the wonderful article. I wonder how one can remove just a single page from amp. Your method only explains removing all amp pages of a website but I want to remove just one page. How can I remove it please help.
You would want to check with the plugin’s support for if that is currently an option. Normally, you should see an option on the page/post itself to not use AMP.
This is super easy to follow, so I’m so grateful to have found this post – but my AMP pages are still showing on Google, even after doing the redirection using the Redirection plugin. I’m not sure what to do, I saw in the comments something about caching, but I’m not sure how to do this?
For Google’s cache, you would need to have Google recrawl your site with its URL checker or wait for Google to notice the update and change your links.
Thanks for such a nice article and your way of explaining was very simple. With this helpful article, I have easily redirected my website and remove AMP successfully.
Lots of thanks
You’re welcome, glad our guide was helpful
Hi Sir, i following all the steps but, i saw all the amp link on google which are ranked now how i can removed that amp ranked links on google. As well when i search on google about my site then i saw amp logo after my site tittle even now I’m not using apm. Now how i removed that icon.
You would need to have Google recrawl your site to start removing the content from Google’s search results.
How, is there any tutorial or bog. Please send me
You can find our article on how to do this below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-ask-google-to-recrawl-urls-of-your-wordpress-site/
My site uses ssl and is on https. Should I use https or http in the redirection ?
Use HTTPS
Hey I have page which have /?amp AMP format. So what change I have to do for proper redirection,
As the code given above /(.*)\/amp is only redirection pages with /amp.
Please tell me what change required for this ? thing.
You could create an additional redirect where you add * before amp if you customized your amp URLs to show like that.
Thanks. I found this article after one too many posts with 17 indecipherable AMP errors
Glad our guide could be helpful
This is the best website to learn and fix anything WordPress. You guys are geniuses!
Thank you, glad you find our content helpful
I have disabled AMP on my site using the mentioned codes. But the post/page previews are showing in AMP mode. What to do? Using TagDiv NewsPaper theme.
You would want to ensure you’ve cleared all of your caching for the most common reason for that.
Yours AMP pages are in Google cache, so when Google Bot re-index and check no rel=”amphtml” tag they index non-AMP page.
Hi, this article sounds very useful, thanks for sharing!
Before I will deactivate/uninstall AMP plugin as well, I have to ask a question.
I have, by mistake, redirected few of amp links (with amp plugin already installed) to my normal url link:
example.com/amp to example.com
The reason why I did that redirect with redirection plugin, is that I had no knowledge of what amp is, and so I thought it’s an error, when I was migrating my site.
Now my question is, should I rather disable all my redirects with amp and then disable/uninstall the AMP plugin and then do the bulk redirect ?
Thank you for your help!
To be safe you may want to create an export of your current redirects, remove them, then do the method in this article to prevent the possibility of multiple redirects
Hi,
Can you tell me, when we can remove the redirection plugin. Does google remove the amp pages automatically after some time?
Once the amp pages are no longer being indexed you can remove the redirection. It takes time and Google recrawling your site for the links to be removed.
Thanks for the quicky reply.
One more question, I’ve to ask, If I don’t do the redirection, then still google remove the amp pages after some time?
Thanks.
Eventually yes
Hi
I followed the steps above. However, when searching on my mobile device the amp pages are still popping up (It’s only been a few hours so this may be why). When I search on desktop device and type in domain.com/amp the redirect works perfectly. Do you know why this is happening?
You would need to clear any caching as the most common reason it would still be showing up.
Worked like a charm.
Thanks!
Glad our guide was helpful
Great Guide! Worked like a charm.
Thank you, glad our guide was helpful
thank you very much for this blog post…
You’re welcome
Hey,
I tried this way and now my website is not loading, it is giving an error message that
” redirected you too many times ”
Please help me out in getting it back.
For the too many redirects error, you would want to take a look at our guide here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-error-too-many-redirects-issue-in-wordpress/
I have done method 1 and cleared/deleted cache and it still shows the AMP version? Any tips how to fix?
You would want to check that your host does not have caching enabled and your redirects do no have any typos
i have done the first method but it still shows amp version what to do?
You would want to clear any caching as the most likely cause
Hi,
You guys are doing great.
After creating AMP i have seen down in my traffic.
So i decided to remove that and i did.
I got many errors. So, i had to install amp again.
Now finally this article helped me a lot to completely remove amp.
Thank you very much WPbeginner.
You are a lifesaver!
Glad our guide could be helpful
THANK YOU!!!! Method #1 worked perfectly!!!
Glad our recommendations could help
Can I disable redirection plugin after AMP completely gone from Google search result? Please help.
If you would like you can. Be warned that would remove the redirects so if the links start appearing as broken links in your search console you may need to readd the redirects.
Hey. Thank you very much for the info but i had a question. It does not work with me method 1. it suppose to be non amp as soon as i do redirect right ?
my website is https so i made it as https that what it should be ? Thanks in advance
If you are using https then you would want the second field as https, as long as you don’t have caching then it should automatically update. If not, you would want to reach out to the plugin’s support for them to take a look.
When should I remove the redirection?
As it would depend on if Google still links to your AMP pages, we don’t have a set time to remove it we would recommend at the moment.
Hi, thanks for helping. I used method 1. All the blog posts are being displayed in proper format but home page, about, contact such pages are still being displayed in AMP. How to fix it?
You may want to check with the author of the redirection plugin to ensure there isn’t a hiccup with the created redirect.
Thanks a lot
Now I disable and delete AMP Plugin. and redirect lINKS by first method.
but I have a question , If I want reinstall AMP plugin again
what I should do about redirections????
You would need to remove the redirections.
I’ve used Method 1 – Using Redirection Plugin. Now, my question is after adding the redirection is it necessary to keep plugin installed & activated?
OR I can remove the plugin after adding the redirection?
Using the plugin, you would need to keep the plugin active for the redirects to continue.
It worked for me wpbeginner thanks a lot
Amp is not advisable use
Glad our article could help
Hi,
I used the redirection method and the AMP pages are redirected to fine, but the address remain as /?amp.
Should I worry?
If the redirection is working correctly, then you do not need to worry about the urls.
I would like to know how can I 301 redirect if my amp url is structured like this
site.com/amp/your-article/
I am using better amp.
Thank you.
Hi Mark,
The htaccess method in this post should handle that redirect for you
Thank you so much! I was struggling with accidentally adding AMP pages and then removing them to losing a lot of traffic. Then, I felt defeated, so I reinstalled AMP. Method 1 with the Redirection plug-in was so easy I wish I had seen this sooner. THANKS!!
Glad our article could help
hii, i followed each and every step but its not working on my WordPress website.
If you removed AMP completely and clearing your cache did not remove the AMP versions you may want to check with your hosting provider to ensure they don’t have caching or similar that would be affecting the AMP pages.
I’m using the Yoast plugin for redirects – what do I input and where to redirect my amp urls to my non-amp ones?
I do as instructed, how long does my site return to normal ?
Thanks!
Hi I disabled the AMP plugin and set up a redirect as per the article. The redirect works, but the AMP pages are still in google index and working. How long until google replaces them with my non amp pages. Please let me know how long it takes organically vs anything I can do to speed this up that is proven to work. Thankyou!
This helped so much thank you! I’ve asked WP support, and they had nothing to offer me for a solution. The new version of WordPress.com doesn’t let you deactivate AMP so I used the Redirection plugin. Thank you again!!!
You are an absolute lifesaver! After implementing AMP, my user engagement dropped significantly, my site links in Google totally disappeared, my ranking (for my niche) was at the bottom of the barrel.
AMP is not really designed for podcasts AT ALL.
Once I decided it wasn’t going to work out, I deleted the plugin only to generate thousands of 404 errors related to AMP. I found myself creating unnecessary laborious work creating redirects every day as they popped up.
Finally, I got frustrated and performed a search and replace in my database to remove amp/ which was a massive mistake. Suddenly my site was no longer available. I deleted the plugin and everything was restored but what to do about all the 404 errors related to AMP?
I ran across your website through a Google search and presto. In one fell swoop, all my headaches disappeared. My sitelinks have been restored and yesterday I received an email from Google stating that mobile-first indexing was enabled on my site.
I cannot thank you enough!
Hi Keith,
We are glad you found the article helpful
You may want to join us on Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials. Next time you come across an issue, don’t forget to search WPBeginner first for a solution 
and a little question, after deactivating AMP, can I delete it? is it safe to do so?
Hi Virginia,
Yes, it is safe to delete the AMP plugin.
hi, I`ve been using AMP but it generated a lot of errors in Google Search console. I´m an amateur blogger so I can´t identify properly the reasons when something isn´t working.
A thing I´ve noticed with AMP is that they cherrypick which image they show as your featured image in a blogpost, and it´s NEVER your actual featured image!! they choose to show an image uploaded inside the body of the post. And I run a travel blog, so I have a lot of unattractive -but useful- images like “this is the almost-hidden-kiosk where you can buy tickets to Eiffel Tower for less”. Well..they decided to show THOSE images instead of my well-curated eye-catching images featuring each post… It´s a NO- NO !!
By the way I was affected by the Yoast SEO bug early this year (which erased the no-index labels in media files, so if someone googled my blog, random images -like pie charts- showed in the results AS PAGES and posts in my blog without a single word explaining anything… a nightmare). I´ve installed a plugin called “404 redirect” to get rid of that mess, redirecting images to actual posts. It´s working fine as much as I know!
I´m trying to redirect all my /amp pages to the original URL, but a few days ago they changed the way the /amp pages show in browsers… is isn´t anymore /blogname.com/posttitle/amp Where can I find my amp pages to copypaste them and redirect all of them to my proper URLs?
Great article! Thank you for giving me more valid reasons to unistall AMP.
I used another regex based on this one:
/(.*)\/amp?\/
My regex match the same but also match “something-before/amp/ instead of only “something-before/amp”
Hi, thanks for this. I have been following an alternative method which tries to remove all AMP URLS by labelling them as no index. This uses the real-time find and replace plugin… where you add this code to the find section of the plugin:
You then go to the AMP plugin, go to the SEO section and add the following code to the head section: The idea is, that this will then signal google to take your amp pages out of the search. It’s only been a couple of days, but google has only indexed more AMP pages so far, so I’m not sure if it’s going to work. You can then create a 404 redirect if you wish from AMP pages to non-amp urls. Only at this point do you disable the AMP plugin. Do you think this will work? I’m trying my best to do this without damaging my rankings. Also…. one more thing! Since installing AMP my traffic has dropped by around a third according to analytics. Is this just because google analytics is not registering visits to AMP pages? I did put my google analytics code in when I set up Google AMP, but that’s all I did, I didn’t add anything to analytics otherwise. Thank you!!
Thanks, very easy to follow. I’m adding in another reason to disable amp (I’ve been on the fence for a while), is that the Amazon affiliate link builder program does NOT support AMP, neither domany of the cookie plugins that folks have been using for GDPR compliance purposes.
Exactly the same reason I dropped AMP. even when promoting my site and sharing direct page links many of my users still ended up on none AMP pages. I lost revenue and now My site is back to costing me money instead of earning me money. I could still see people are converting and clicking my links but yesterday when i had a huge boost in traffic, out of 500 link clicks, only 33 were captured by my affiliate programme.